I have successfully finished being exposed to 1200cG (centi-grays) of radiation over the course of the past three days thanks to an awesome team of specialists. And I even have a certificate to prove it!

The wonderful certificate of appreciation I received this afternoon after my sixth and final course of full body radiation. Even got a hug from my radiation nurse!

And still, beyond a dry mouth, and a bit of fatigue, not much wear to show for all that, yet. Hopefully the radiation did its job in killing off all my bone marrow – that’s what the main purpose was of getting the radiation.

The oncology radiologist I spoke to this afternoon after my final treatment commented that I went through the radiation treatment amazingly well, and while he doesn’t know exactly why, perhaps my relative youth, good health, and good energy levels might have helped. He also indicated that there is a chance that some of my organs may have been damaged a bit (which would be fixable or heal-able), but only repeated testing (urine and blood samples) will determine if any such situations exist. So far so good (and please continue knocking on wood – it’s definitely been helping.)

On to what’s next…

One of my favorite movie quotes is from the 1980 version The Blues Brothers:

Elwood: It’s a 106 miles to Chicago. We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark and we’re wearing sunglasses.
Jake: Hit it!

There is the absurdity of wearing sunglasses at night, but in reality is it a checklist in the pursuit of a goal. In Jake and Elwood’s case, that is to deliver concert proceeds to a tax collectors office in Chicago, while being sought by the police, and an extremist group.

My current version of this movie quote is:

Jake: I’ve just been radiated and chemo’d. It’s five more days until the treatment is over. I have a couple small bags of Haribo gummi bears, a full jug of water, no idea what I am facing and am covered by a fluffy duvet.
Jake (speaking to myself): Hit it!

Okay. Maybe not as memorable, but to me it has the same feeling. And in my case the ultimate goal is NED – No Evidence of Disease.

To get there I need to get through the next five days of treatment with IL-2 in the form Aldesleukin. From what everybody has said, intensive IL-2, which will start to be administered few hours after my TIL cells are administered tomorrow in order to super-charge the TIL cells and help them achieve their cancer-killing task. (But, as a caution, it will not be clear for at least a month how effective they were, and may take many months to verify total shrinkage and disappearance.)

After the first administration of IL-2 I will continue to receive 15-minute infusions via IV every eight hours until my body just cannot handle it anymore (based on physiological responses related to breathing, organ function, and also on mental function). There are a maximum of 14 doses of IL-2 that will be administered, but my nurse has never heard of anyone that has even gotten close. IL-2 comes with fevers, chills, rigor (shaking during chills), and all sorts of other pretty scary things – more details in the fine print available here.

Whenever it is that my IL-2 treatment ends, I will be a bloated wreck for a bit (an IL-2 side effect is the release of stored water in the body being pulled out of its regular places, resulting in a 20-30 pound “bloat” – and yes, I will have someone take pictures of Puff Daddy Jake :-) ). But I’m betting on being a bloated Jake on his way to NED.

And, speaking of photos – I know I have been remiss in providing images with posts lately, so below are several images to captured over the last week:

Linda and the kids in to my hospital room to keep me company. Here everyone was getting their wifi connections working. Honestly, they really do pay me a lot of attention when I'm not sleeping. We play games, watch movies, talk, and even torture the kids with doing their more traditional forms of schoolwork.

My IV tree the night they were administrating my first dose of Cytoxan to kill my current immune system. Festive!

Cyclophosphomide a.k.a. Cytoxan, close up.

Linda and the kids enjoying a take out meal which I got to try part of with doctors' permission. I managed two wings, a small chunk of dark meat, and two fries before I was full.

Here I am in my hospital room working on this blog post about Day -1, after finishing my final radiation treatment. That's Renaissance Bear next to me.

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About

This blog started as a place to explore the pursuit of parallel, varied interests in the vein of a Renaissance person in light of society's demand for specialization, but my diagnosis of cancer - malignant melanoma - in March 2011, has changed all that.

For now, this blog will deal with an exploration of how cancer affects one's life and perspectives, as well as share the voyage through diagnosis and treatment, hopefully with a positive outcome somewhere down the road.